Mass-produced goods are products or goods which are sufficiently well known and which are produced or transported in large quantity. They may also be designated as utility goods and are characterized in that they are supplied in large quantities and have to fulfil certain basic specifications. These include the loose bulk and liquid materials, which do not permit a quantity to be stated in pieces.
Mass-produced goods are classified, according to their physical state, as dry and wet mass-produced goods and gaseous mass-produced goods. These classifications give direct indications of the production factors necessary for transport, transfer and storage activities. They are therefore of high practical relevance for the participants in the transformation processes of international logistics. Wet mass-produced goods (e.g. crude oil, mineral oil products) are transported by tankers at sea and vessels on inland waterways together with goods wagons and lorries, transferred, in some cases also with suction installations, and generally stored in silos and sometimes in the open air. Gaseous mass-produced goods are logistically transformed similarly to the wet mass-produced goods—but with different technologies in detail. The logistical flow of mass-produced goods is generally measured in weights and volumes. Mass-produced goods are not packed but they can be converted into piece goods by the introduction into packing materials (e.g. bags, barrels, cartons or bottles) by means of load carriers (i.e. containers). Piece goods are semifinished and/or finished products, in some cases also packed mass-produced goods. Historically, they are generally held together and protected by packing materials, such as bags or barrels, and immediately loaded onto the means of transport.
Utility goods or consumer goods are consistently demanded by a large user group (consumers or processors) and as a rule produced over a relatively long period. They may be production goods (e.g. ores, wood, steel, sheet metal, pipes) and consumer goods (e.g. household products, textiles).
They comprise liquid mass-produced loads, such as mineral oil, liquefied gas, liquefied natural gas and liquid mineral oil products. The solid mass-produced load is divided into granular form (bulk material), such as ore, coal, bauxite, phosphate, cement, cereal, or into solid mass-produced material in the form of pieces (piece goods), such as tree trunks, paper, automobiles or steel.
The merchandise mentioned in trade, such as products and the finished goods mentioned in agriculture and horticulture, becomes articles in trade.
Marketable goods is a collective designation for the commercial materials sold by tradesmen. Suitable objects of trade in the widest sense are commercial goods of all kinds, raw materials, agricultural products, capital goods, consumer goods, currencies and securities. Products are self-contained functional articles consisting of a number of groups and/or parts (e.g. machines, devices) as end results of manufacture.
In particular, firstly the use of construction materials is subject to standards and secondly there are frequently defects as a result of the use of a construction material which is unsuitable for a specific application in compliance with standards and an unsuitable dose of multicomponent systems. Defective structural parts are the result, the damage often becoming obvious in the years after completion of a construction project.
It was therefore the object of the present invention quantitatively and qualitatively to determine the type and origin of materials used and thus to carry out the quality assurance of the construction material immediately during and after its use. The detection should be possible on a completed structure.
The method was developed for construction materials but is not limited to such.
This object was achieved by the provision of a method for identifying mass-produced goods in articles, a dye-containing polymer dispersion having been added to the mass-produced goods, wherein particles are coded by a mixture of dyes and the polymer dispersion particles being quantitatively determined. The coding is preferably effected by preparing a polymer dispersion in which each individual dispersion particle comprises a uniform pattern of dyes which is unmistakable for the respective dispersion. The pattern is determined by the number of dyes available altogether and their relative concentration in the polymer particle. The pattern can be detected by spectroscopic and/or microscopic methods.
It has now surprisingly been found that a quantitative and qualitative type of the origin of the materials used can be determined by marking of mass-produced goods in articles. The markers which are associated with a quantitatively high degree of marking for mass-produced goods could be economically produced thereby. The marking, according to the invention, of mass-produced goods can be effected by metering the marker at different points during their production process.